Materials

Miniature Painting

Islamic miniature painting is generally understood to mean small paintings that are or once were part of a manuscript, used as a frontispiece or an illustration for a text. Drawings and individual paintings have, however, also been preserved. They were either sketches or were intended to be placed as independent works of art in an album.

The miniatures usually had a paper base, but cardboard and in rare cases cotton or silk cloth were also used. The brilliant colors are usually opaque.

The oldest preserved miniature paintings were made in around the year 1000, but not until around 1200 were they found in larger numbers. Islamic miniature painting is often categorized rather summarily into four regional schools: the Arab, the Persian, the Indian, and the Ottoman Turkish.

Painting pasted on an album leaf. “Ma’ali Mian Saif al-Mulk Being Shown Some Jewels.” Attributed to Venkatchellam

Ma’ali Mian was the only son of Aristu Jah, prime minister of the Nizam of HyderabadAli Khan Asaf Jah (1761-1803). From around 1720, the Nizams of Hyderabad ruled overlarge parts of the former Deccan states – formally as governors for the Mughals in Delhi, but de facto as independent sovereigns.

A note on the back from 1807 attributes the painting to the court’s leading artist, Venkatchellam. The rather young nawab is shown in the last rays of the afternoon sun. He is sitting nonchalantly on a chair with a European form and is being shown some jewelry, though it does not seem to interest him very much.The garden is filled with colorful flowers, trees, birds, and insects that attain enormous size in the foreground. The glowing colors are repeated in the many textiles, and an especially refined touch is Ma’ali Mian’s emeralds, made from little pieces of metallic beetles.

The warm, exotic palette can resemble that found in art from Golconda and the other Deccan states during their heyday in the 17th century. The portrayal of the characters, however, is weaker.